Hey Megagoo, I'm in Metairie too. Of course I just say New Orleans because no one outside of LA knows what Metairie is.

Yeah I don't have a PCI slot in my pc. Trust me, I wish I did, it would solve all my problems. The Blaxtream is a PC all crammed in to a single DIN chassis so you can have the whole thing up front with you. It allows me to keep it in my glovebox. When the time and money comes to upgrade to a different system, I will definitely be going a different route so I have the ability to go PCI if I want to. How is the SB Live? I see it in CompUSA all the time, and I've always wondered how it sounds.

Ok, I'll try to disable the onboard sound just to see what happens... only thing is though that I'll totally lose XM if my onboard is disabled. Unless Winamp's Line-in plugin magically accepts the input signal through a soundcard that is disabled?? I've seen stranger things.

if the onboard sound is disabled in bios, it will be like it doesn't exist so your line-in wont exist. but it will at least tell you if theres a conflict so you can take it from there

i have a via epia m10000. tiny little motherboard. i originally had it under the passenger seat but not its in my trunk under the floor next to my spare tire. but it has 1 pci slot and comes with a little card you stick into the pci slot that has another pci slot on it so you can side-load a card. so it takes up room horizontally instead of vertically. i upgraded the little card so it accepts two pci cards, so i have the sb-live in 1 slot and a wireless ethernet card in the other

the sblive is ok. ive never had a very picky ear though even though im a musician.

do you hear a difference in the car with your mp3s through the xmod vs the regular onboard sound?

3. To adjust the screen resolution of RR go to the general.ini file inthe folder of the skin you're using and change showwidth and showheight to the resolution you want.

4. Regarding sound quality, get this plugin: http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=81361 . This is a small DSP plugin that makes an amazing difference to mp3 sound quality as well as XM sound quality if you're using the line in plugin. This plugin is far better than other DSP plugins (read the reviews) and also far better than the Crystalizer on the X-Fi sound card. (I've got the X-Fi also and don't use the Crystalizer because the plugin makes it unnecessary.) Make sure you run the plugin in "Boost" mode.

.... man i need to try this plugin. what bugs me about carpcs in general is that even though theres message boards dedicated to it, theres no ONE resource for a complete software setup. since i installed RR like 3 weeks ago, everytime i discover a new problem i have to search out answers and sometimes they're hard to find. can't there be one post that says in essence "set it up like this and if a problem occurs here, do this. to make it work better do this". oh well im just grateful that the community exists and theres software and help for this type of hobby

actually i was thinking about that. like a newbie's guide, written by a newbie (me). maybe the carpc veterans dont realize that some things arent obvious when it comes to making a pc operate in a car and do it well. but i dont think i'll have time

3. To adjust the screen resolution of RR go to the general.ini file inthe folder of the skin you're using and change showwidth and showheight to the resolution you want.

4. Regarding sound quality, get this plugin: http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=81361 . This is a small DSP plugin that makes an amazing difference to mp3 sound quality as well as XM sound quality if you're using the line in plugin. This plugin is far better than other DSP plugins (read the reviews) and also far better than the Crystalizer on the X-Fi sound card. (I've got the X-Fi also and don't use the Crystalizer because the plugin makes it unnecessary.) Make sure you run the plugin in "Boost" mode.

actually i was thinking about that. like a newbie's guide, written by a newbie (me). maybe the carpc veterans dont realize that some things arent obvious when it comes to making a pc operate in a car and do it well. but i dont think i'll have time

Actually we do realize that because we were all newbies at one time. We were all willing to do the work necessary to get us where we are. I actually think the people on this board have done a very good job of helping out newbies. Not only are the FAQs very good, but most of the people on the board are very willing to help get newbies up to speed. Remember that there are an unlimited number of hardware and software configurations, features and functions. It would be impossible to address each issue in a single place. The search feature actually works remarkably well. And don't forget that nobody is making any money at this. Most, like you, don't have the ability (or the incentive) to spend countless hours solving everyone's problems.

The main frustration comes when someone has gone to considerable effort to compile a list of FAQs or a help file, or a question has been answered a thousand times, and people are too lazy to spend five minutes to find the answer.

yea i wasnt saying that people arent helpful. i've just come across a few things that you would think would be common knowledge but its not really documented anywhere. for instance the voltage on my J5 switch (LED) is 6 volts which i believe is twice what most LEDS use. the m2-atx manual doesn't say that and its impossible to search on that without getting a few hundred topics that probably wont tell you that. so i needed a resistor for it. but a few people stepped up to help me get my LED working which is wonderful and appreciated.

i've been pretty self sufficient when setting up new things. i search and look at faqs and try and figure things out for myself and even help others based off what little knowledge i've amassed thus far.